Early modern people had some understanding of the natural processes that led to unusual weather events, but religious explanations were also common throughout the period. Droughts, floods, earthquakes and even cloud formations might be seen as portentous. When several floods occurred across England in 1674, one author advised that readers ‘humble their souls under the hands of providence’ in order to ‘divert this threatening visitation of unseasonable weather’.¹Sad News from the Countrey, or, A True and Full Relation of the Late Wonderful Floods in Divers Parts of England (London, 1674), title page.

In addition to using the weather to predict future events, early modern people also used divinatory methods to predict the weather. A great number of ‘almanacs’ were published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, often employing astrological techniques to proffer weather forecasts for the forthcoming year and advise on the appropriate times for farming activities. Writing about the weather for 1572, Thomas Hill predicted ‘The first day [of March] fair and warm, with clouds in the afternoon, and some wind; the second, great wind or a tempest, with rain in the morning’.²Thomas Hill, A Prognostication Made for the Yeare of our Lorde God, 1572 (London, 1572), under March. Just as dramatic weather events were understood in both natural and supernatural terms, weather prediction could combine naturalistic techniques with occult methods.